


Still Life

by fhsa_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Challenge Response
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-03-23
Updated: 2005-03-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 13:59:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12796035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fhsa_archivist/pseuds/fhsa_archivist
Summary: Notes: Er, okay. For Ursula's Valentine's Day challenge, if the mail goes through on time. Don't look at me; I didn't know they were going to pick up this one....





	Still Life

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Haven, the archivist: This story was originally archived at [Fandom Haven Story Archive (FHSA)](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Fandom_Haven_Story_Archive), was scheduled to shut down at the end of 2016. To preserve the archive, I began working with the OTW to transfer the stories to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2017. If you are this creator and the work hasn't transferred to your AO3 account, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Fandom Haven Story Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/fhsa/profile).

"You don't want this." 

 

An echo of the words he'd begun this with, so many years ago. Then as now, certainty echoes steel-wrought through the room. 

 

"Trust me." 

 

Then... I'd ignored him, then. Torn open the box and let the contents spill out. 

 

He'd been right. I hadn't wanted it. 

 

But I'd needed it. 

 

It had brought me him, into the palm of my hand, as he'd once held me. Different shackles, same result. Later, not so much later, it had brought him into my bed. Later still into my home. And finally, my heart. 

 

"Please." 

 

And now... desperate, his eyes. Like they'd not been all those years ago, when not in his wildest dreams had he thought he'd ever again have something left to lose. This time, he's the one that needs it. 

 

*Damn* it. 

 

Because he's right this time, too. I don't want this. If it were up to me, I'd throw the whole damned thing on the fire, and to hell with whatever timebomb it contains. 

 

"Walter. *Please*." Sheer horror in his voice. I haven't heard that since... so long since. Seventeen floors up, and the balcony railing beginning to give way beneath his weight. More floors underground, and a bunker locked in darkness. Huddled over a palm pilot; although I'm fairly sure I wasn't supposed to hear *his* horror then. Not long enough since. I wish I'd never heard it, then or now. 

 

*Damn* it. Whoever sent this, wherever they are -- damn *them*. 

 

Because they sent it tonight knowing full well he'd be here -- where else?; and now he knows as well as I that they'll not let it be. If I throw this one on the fire, he'll never go to sleep again without wondering when the next one comes, and what I'll do when I open it -- and if he'll wake up alive. 

 

I know that tight-lipped scowl, too. Out of practice, the blank mask that follows; it's been that many years since he's needed it. Not enough years, obviously. I thought by now he'd accepted that I know full well what he was. Where he's been. What he's done. More; I know *why*. How, when, where, why -- does he think I was an Agent all those years on looks alone? Because clearly I haven't managed to yet get it through his skull that I'm not an idiot. Or that these days I speak enough Russian to *understand* his nightmares, whether or not *he* ever remembers them, or speaks of them. 

 

But no; apparently he's still the idiot he clearly thinks me. All it takes to end his world is a package, delivered anonymously to our door and wrapped innocuously in old newspaper. Years' old newspaper; and barely a glance at the date needed to know just what kind of 'truths' this package is likely to contain. 

 

Damn it, Alex. Don't you have more faith in me than *that*? 

 

Nothing for it but to open it, now. Photographs spill out -- why am I the only one of us that's not surprised by that? And if I thought the deed would at all reassure, damn right I'd be shaking him like the thrice-blessed idiot he's acting, pulling out that old duffel, throwing clothes willy-nilly into it. Like I'd actually let him leave, for no better reason than a coward with a packet of old photographs. 

 

He's lost the knack of that, too. Time was, he'd've been packed and out the door already. Now, he's still pulling shirts out of the drawer. 

 

The drawer.... there's other things in that drawer. "Leave me the pictures." 

 

"What?" Voice tight, drawn in; the barked word has no room left to echo the confusion in his eyes. 

 

"The pictures. In that drawer." Puzzlement briefly overtaking the mask; he's definitely out of practice. "Of you and me." Slowly, as though explaining to a child, as his hand roots almost reflexively for the packet. He pulls it out, stands with them held weightily in his one hand. "They're better than these ones." A quick grin, slanted his way, echoed for a bare heartbeat in those green eyes before the confusion slams down again. "More... flesh visible." 

 

"Walt...." Uncertain, that word; as though he doesn't know whether to plead or accuse, weep or flee. 

 

"Well?" 

 

He throws the packet at me; and at least my reflexes aren't completely shot yet, because I manage to catch it *before* it knocks me out of my chair. The mask may have lost cohesion in the past years; but his throwing arm surely hasn't. 

 

I weigh the packet thoughtfully in my hand. *This* one, I know what's in here. I know what I'll see when I fan through the packet, what I'll remember, what I'll feel, how the nostalgia will well up through the images. 

 

The other ones, lying scattered across the table, aren't nearly so reassuring. 

Nothing for it, I suppose. He needs this, apparently. And what's love if not giving what's needed, despite your own desires? 

 

"See, this one, for instance." In the one hand a photo of Alex, holding a gun to the head of a kneeling figure. Desert in the background; sweat beads on the pictured brow, the one visible eye clear-cut emerald, stone-hard. "It's a halfway decent profile, admittedly; but it just doesn't have the same impact as this other." 

 

In the other Alex, surrounded by sand, sweat beads on the pictured brow and laughter bright in shining eyes. "Technically, I suppose the first is better. The equipment probably cost a fortune, after all, and whoever took it was bound to have been trained in photography. 

 

But it's dead, Alex. I've never been a fan of still-lifes; give me an mpressionist any day. So we'll keep this one, I think." The photo of Alex on the beach back onto the desk, the photo of Alex in the desert into the fire. His back flinches as the flames flare. Interesting. Burning the past in effigy, perhaps? 

 

The second photo follows the first, and the third. He listens to the commentary, watches the flying photographs into the flames, his mask restored to its old versatility and firmly in place, his back taut and unmoving. Shoulders hunched. What's in here, Alex, that you're expecting me to baulk at? 

 

I don't think I want to find out. And I'd really rather not go through all of these this way. 

 

The seventh photo brings another flinch, although I can't for the life of me see why. We dealt with the damned nanocytes a long time ago. "Old story." Into the flames. 

 

Death and mayhem, sex and sweat and blood. Psychotic glee to depth-born hatred with a rest-stop in sheer boredom, in varying degrees of positions and weapons and poses. The twenty-third photograph is the kicker, apparently. I'd thought him stone-faced before; but no. *This* is his mask back at its cold-war strength. He'd looked like this when I'd opened the first packet, so many years ago. Which is why, for the first time, I'm afraid to look down from his face and at this next photograph. Afraid that, even though I forgive him, he won't forgive himself. 

 

Which is why I have to laugh. Even though it narrows his eyes silvery-green with anger, tilts his nose offended into the air. Damn it, Alex! You were that afraid of *this*? Relief bubbles through me in counterpoint to the temper rising in him. In the photograph, Alex, in leather jacket and glaring helion-lighting, kissing Mulder in an Hong Kong airport. 

 

"God, Alex. How much of an idiot do you *take* me for?" 

 

And at last, his temper rises high. Eyes snapping fire, muscles relaxing into his favourite berating-stance, mouth opening to allow that razor-witted rebuttal. Still laughing, I toss the rest of the one packet into the fire with it's companions, pull out from the other my favourite photograph of Alex in high dudgeon, hold it next to the real thing just to watch the flames flare higher there, as well. 

 

Decided I'm worth fighting for at last, have you, Alex? Maybe whoever sent this damned packet did us a favour, after all.


End file.
